Chapter 240 Checking the Beehives and Harvesting Rice
Soon, Gao Mingcheng arrived at the place where the beehives were. Since there were no black bears in the mountains, the beehives were quite safe. From the outside, they did not seem to have been damaged, but when he got closer, he could still see the wasps.
Gao Mingcheng picked up the wooden stick on the ground skillfully, and with a swing of the stick, the wasps fell to the ground. Some of them died immediately, while others struggled in vain.
As a qualified beekeeper, Gao Mingcheng is quite protective of his bees.
After killing all the wasps lingering around the beehive, Gao Mingcheng opened the lid of the beehive and checked the honeycombs inside.
A honeycomb is often divided into two parts, one for storing honey and the other for hatching bee pupae. In a bee colony, there are three types of bees: queen bee, drone bee and worker bee. The life span of each type of bee is different. The queen bee can live for four or five years, the drone bee for about three months, and the worker bee has the shortest life span, which is only one and a half months when they are busy collecting honey, but it can be extended to three months in winter.
The queen bee chooses different nests to lay different eggs. She lays fertilized eggs in ordinary hexagonal nests and bases, which will develop into worker bees or queen bees; she lays unfertilized eggs in larger hexagonal nests, which can only develop into drones in the future.
The egg period of the three types of bees is three days. After three days, they will hatch into larvae and start sucking royal jelly. In the first three days, all larvae eat royal jelly, but the situation will change after that. Only the queen bee larvae can continue to eat royal jelly until pupation, while the drone and worker bee larvae begin to eat bee food. What is bee food? It is a kind of food made from honey and pollen.
After the larvae have molted five times in the capping house, they can pupate. During this period, different bee species require different amounts of time. After pupation, the pupae will emerge in the capping house, bite through the house cover, and crawl out of the hive. Only then will they officially become so-called bees and begin a life with different responsibilities.
Therefore, Gao Mingcheng can know the condition of a batch of bee pupae by observing the cells on the beehives. Although the queen bee can live for several years, its fertility will decrease later, so it is often artificially eliminated in the beekeeping industry. In order to increase production and control the spread of bee diseases, the queen bee will be replaced once a year.
The queen bees in Gao Mingcheng's beehives are still very young and have good reproductive ability, so he has no intention of replacing the queen bee for the time being. He checks each beehive one by one and keeps the situation of the bee colony in mind.
By the time all the beehives were checked, it was getting dark.
Gao Mingcheng was in a good mood and whistled as he walked down the mountain. The sounds of birdsong and the wind swayed the trees, and the sounds of nature were very harmonious.
When he got home, Black Tiger and the elf immediately came up to him and circled around him excitedly.
Xuanyimei had already cooked the meal, but did not eat it first. Instead, she was reading a fashion magazine.
Seeing Gao Mingcheng coming back, he put down the book and said, "Hurry up and wash your hands and come to eat."
So they washed their hands and sat down to eat.
The food is simple but tastes good. The family is not short of money, so they can afford all kinds of seasonings. The main flavor characteristics of Jiangxi cuisine are: original flavor, thick oil but not greasy, strong taste, salty, fresh and spicy. Many American cuisines can now achieve the latter two - strong taste, salty, fresh and spicy.
Maybe it’s because I ate too much bland soup in the past, so I like to add seasonings to many delicious dishes and I’m willing to do so. Any dish will never taste too bad as long as you’re willing to add seasonings.
While eating, Gao Mingcheng talked about his plans for tomorrow. He planned to go to the fields to harvest the one acre of rice.
When he entered the village, he saw that most of the fields were empty. Only a few fields still had rice growing, including his family's field.
"After the autumn harvest, we have to pay the public grain tax and the inheritance tax. This year's production has decreased, and I don't know if the public grain tax can be reduced." Xuanyuemei said, with some worry in her voice.
His family is not short of money now, but for ordinary families, paying public grain is also a heavy task.
There are also inheritance fees, and the money from inheritance fees is collected by the village committee, and the amount increases every year.
"It will be less." Gao Mingcheng comforted him, and decided in his heart that he would buy some rice after harvesting it.
There is no hope for the rice produced in our own county as there has been a large-scale reduction in production, but rice from other places will take the opportunity to be sold in because the price will be higher than in previous years.
Counting the days, the day after tomorrow is the market day in the county, so I can go there to buy it.
The couple talked and discussed what they were going to do next. Xuanyuemei had been busy making clothes recently, and now Dong Feixia had started making winter clothes for them.
The next day, after breakfast, Gao Mingcheng went to the fields with a sickle and a shoulder pole.
Standing on the ridge of the field, you can see that the rice is all golden yellow, which is eye-catching. But if you look closely, you will find that most of the drooping rice ears are hollow, with only a few being full.
Sparrows flew high and low, pecking at the rice at will.
"Hey!" Gao Mingcheng waved his hand and scared the sparrow away, making it fly away. After the sound of flapping wings, there was a brief silence.
There were not many weeds in the rice fields. Although the lack of water meant a reduction in yield, Gao Mingcheng still pulled out the weeds in the fields. Then, when filling the fields, he tried his best to water them a few times. After that, he could only leave it to fate.
There was only one acre of land, and Gao Mingcheng did not call Duo Meilai. He bent down alone and started to harvest the rice.
Hold a handful of rice in one hand and use the sickle in the other to cut the rice close to the ground.
He was in good physical condition and when he bent over to work, he hardly ever straightened up to rest. In a short while, he had harvested all the rice in an acre of field.
He tied the rice into bundles and carried it home on a shoulder pole. Along the way, he met people from other villages, who talked to him and asked about selling medicinal herbs.
Gao Mingcheng told Gao Mingli about what happened at the pharmaceutical trade fair and asked him not to talk about it outside.
Although he collected medicinal herbs in the village and sold them, he had to make money, otherwise who would do this?
But the mentality is different between letting people know that you can make money and letting people know exactly how much money you have made.
Everyone has a different concept of making money. Some people think they may earn a few hundred or at most a thousand. This is because their annual income is just that much, and their normal expenses are not much, so they have no idea what it feels like to earn thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan at a time.
But if you knew, you would definitely be envious and jealous.
Gao Mingcheng laughed it off and told what he could, but he was vague about how much he had earned specifically. If asked again, he would have to talk about the money spent on renting a truck, refueling, renting a stall, staying in a hotel, and eating.
After doing all the math, people are confused and may even think that Gao Mingcheng's life is not easy. Although he makes money, he is also very busy and exhausted, and spends a lot of money along the way.
In this way, people would think that Gao Mingcheng did not earn this money easily, so they would not envy Gao Mingcheng so much.
He talked to people all the way while carrying the rice back home. He went back and forth several times before he finally carried all the rice home and piled it on the clean cement floor.
Gao Mingcheng ran into the kitchen, gulped down a large bowl of tea, and then continued to work. He had to shake the grains off the rice ears, then collect them and dry them.
It took him most of the day to finish the task, and in the evening he went to his parents' house.
There will be a market in the county tomorrow, and he wants to buy rice. He needs to ask Gao Mingli whether he has decided where to work, so that he can bring him to meet Gao Guobing.
(End of this chapter)
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